The Interloper
by Flaignhan
Summary: It's with some annoyance that she notices he's got his feet propped up on the arm of the sofa without having first removed his shoes.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: **Whoops I've started posting a story again. Just as a heads up, updates on this aren't going to be nearly as fast as they were for _Turn_ - that was all down to the fact that during the lead up to my operation work was going very easy on me and barely giving me anything to do. Now I'm back and they're like 'hey Laura, we missed you, by the way, here's a ton of stuff for you to do'. Which is good, but it does mean that I'm spending a lot more time working. Also, still healing, so spending an awful lot of time sleeping. But anyway, here's the start of a new magical journey. **There are spoilers for TDW in this story, so if you haven't seen it, back away now or prepare to be spoiled. **Anyway, hope you all enjoy this, you can keep updated on my breakdowns over this story on my tumblr, link for which is on my profile.

* * *

**The Interloper**

**by Flaignhan**

* * *

She's getting too old for this shit.

The guards she had anticipated, the alarms too. She'd been given a briefing about the motion sensors, the heat sensors and the lockdown process. The one thing they'd neglected to mention, however, had been the dogs. She can hear their paws pounding on the earth behind her as her heart hammers in her chest. If she makes it out of here in one piece, she'll serve Fury his ass on a god damn plate. _Watch out for the heat sensors, but we'll neglect to mention the rabid killer monsters that'll tear you to shreds if they catch you._

She crashes into the chain link fence and scales it quickly, ignoring the sharp slice of the barbed wire coiled at the top. She nearly loses her balance as the dogs catch up with her, jumping up at the fence, barking and growling, their claws catching on the wire and shaking the entire panel. Carefully, she manoeuvres herself over the top, grimacing when the barbs dig into her, but don't pierce her suit. She jumps down to the ground, then springs up again, sprinting across the concrete, weaving her way out of the path of the spotlights searching for her. She keeps surging forward, her hands warm and wet with blood, her thighs aching as she pushes on, her breath ragged as she makes it back to the road. She whips her head around, searching for the car, but she can't see it in the darkness.

She forces herself onwards, her feet aching as they slap the concrete, and, just when she thinks this hundred metre dash is going to turn into a marathon all the way back to headquarters, a set of headlights flare in front of her, blinding her and causing coloured spots to float in front of her eyes. She shields herself from the beams and dashes forward, hauling open the door and throwing herself into the passenger seat.

"All good?" Coulson asks.

Natasha looks down at her bloodied hands as they pull away and smiles wryly. "I got the files, if that's what you mean."

Coulson smirks as they turn onto a busier main road and get held at a set of traffic lights. "You've recovered from worse." He reaches behind the passenger seat and pulls a first aid kit from the pocket on the back, and tosses it to Natasha, She unzips it quickly and tries to tear open one of the antiseptic wipes, but she can't get a good grip for all the blood on her hands. Losing patience, she rips the corner of the sachet off with her teeth and pulls out the thin white cloth, wiping off the excess blood and staining it pink immediately. The gash across the palm of her hand is deep, every time she wipes the blood away, a fresh collection pools, and so she pulls out a bandage and wraps it as tightly as she can around her hand, tucking the end away before adjusting herself in her seat and clipping her belt into place.

"Fury wants to see you before you go home," Coulson tells her. "And you'll probably need stitches for that." He takes his eyes off the road for a moment to glance down at Natasha's hand. She grimaces, and cradles it against her chest, hoping that the blood will soon clot and she won't have to spend too long being fussed over by the medics. Really, she just wants to get home and get some rest, ready for a normal day tomorrow.

Coulson pulls up outside headquarters, but doesn't turn off the engine. Natasha's eyebrows twitch into a frown.

"You're not coming in?"

Coulson shakes his head.

"Right," Natasha says. "See you tomorrow I guess."

"See ya," he replies, and Natasha gets out of the car, pushing the door shut behind her, and Coulson drives off, leaving her standing alone. She sighs and heads into the lobby, the security guard giving her a nod of greeting as she passes. She pauses at the retina scanner and after a quick bleep, she is granted access to the lifts. Fury's office is on the fifty-third floor, and it's a long ride up. Blood has started to soak through her bandage, only a little, but she's sure that as soon as he's finished debriefing her, she'll be spending a good hour in the sick bay, undergoing a full post-assignment medical when all she really needs is a needle and thread, or even some superglue. Like Coulson says, she's recovered from far worse.

She knocks on the door and enters, knowing full well he'll have stayed late for her this evening. He's nursing a cup of coffee, his feet up on the desk, his face tired. Natasha reaches into her pocket with her slightly less shredded hand and pulls out a USB stick, tossing it onto the table. Fury smiles and gestures for her to take a seat.

"And here was me thinking I'd be here until midnight," he says, glancing up at the clock above the door. Natasha twists in her seat to find that it's only just gone ten thirty, and turns back to Fury, a small smirk on her lips.

"Maybe if you'd sent Barton, you would be," she says coyly.

Fury allows himself a small chuckle, then drags his feet off of the desk, his boots landing on the floor with a loud thud. "Coffee?" he asks.

Natasha shakes her head. "I wanna sleep tonight."

Fury narrows his eye, his gaze focused on Natasha's bandaged hand and the small patch of pink that has seeped through the gauze. He raises an eyebrow, and Natasha knows she has to confess.

"Barbed wire."

"You coulda been more careful. Not like you to get cut up on something so silly."

"Yeah," Natasha says airily, leaning back in her seat. "Maybe I would've been more careful had I not had a pack of dogs chasing me across the god damn complex."

"_Dogs_?"

"_Yes_."

Fury nods in approval. "Old school. You gotta respect that."

Natasha gives him a withering look and he wipes the smile from his face.

"Oh go and see the medics," he says with a wave of his hand. "I wanna go home, we can check this shit out tomorrow." He picks up the USB and stows it in the inside pocket of his leather coat, the movement revealing the gleaming butt of his pistol, holstered by his ribs. Natasha breathes a small sigh of relief, glad to not be trawling through CCTV footage until the early hours, and she stands up, turning for the door.

"Goodnight, sir," she says, biting into her inside lower lip as she forgets about the shallower cuts on her left hand and turns the door handle, the metal scraping against her tender flesh. She swallows down the grimace that threatens to pull at her face, and Fury gives her a casual salute of dismissal.

The corridor outside Fury's office is empty, most of the staff having disappeared for the night. The medics, she knows, have been awaiting her return, and hopefully they're just as anxious as she is to get home. She enters the lift and punches the button for the tenth floor, her stomach jolting as the lift lurches into descent. When it shudders to a halt, seconds later, the doors slide open and two uniformed medics are already there. They ambush her as soon as she steps outside and Natasha skips around the wheelchair they've brought along and strides determinedly towards the treatment room, the two of them at her heels, throwing questions at her in rushed, breathy voices. She tries to keep her expression plain, but these two are so obviously _new_ and so obviously nervous of her that her already paper-thin patience is being stretched to breaking point.

"Any head injuries? You know even the smallest knock needs - "

"No."

"Dizziness?"

"_No_."

They enter the treatment room and Natasha slides onto the bed and starts to unravel the bandage from her hand. The girl rushes around collecting various pieces of equipment in order to tend to it, while the guy wraps a blood pressure armband around her upper arm. He presses a few buttons and it inflates, squeezing Natasha's muscles unpleasantly, but then there are a series of bleeps followed by a quick deflation.

"Blood pressure's a little low…"

"Can we maybe worry about that _after_ you've fixed my hand?" Natasha asks pointedly. Blood pressure it the least of her worries, and she's constantly being told by every medic in this damn building that it's too low, but it's just the way she's built. They've tried to prescribe her pills, but gave up when they realised she was dropping them into the nearest bin the first chance she got. She knows her own body better than anyone, and knows that an increase in blood pressure would fuck her up and leave her off kilter. So no, no tablets.

The girl appears in front of her with a tray which she sets on the bed, then begins to clean Natasha's wound. Eventually, after more fuss, a pulse count, oxygen level check and her temperature being taken, the first stitch is sewn, the skin smarting as it's pulled back together.

"Painkillers?" the guy asks, holding up a syringe filled with clear fluid.

Natasha shakes her head.

"Sure?"

"_Sure_," she says through gritted teeth.

He puts the needle down then takes her left hand, cleaning it carefully, Natasha holding in a hiss of discomfort. He fumbles as he peels the dressing away from its wrapper, but it's not too long before he's secured it, patting it down gently. The girl reaches across to the tray for a pair of scissors and snips the thread attached to Natasha's hand. As she moves away, the guy moves in, and it's like they're a double act, working in tandem and knowing exactly where the other will be moving next. He wraps a new bandage around Natasha's right hand until she can't make a fist at all. She sighs, reminding herself that she can simply take it off in the morning, but now is the time to suck it up and deal with it.

"Any other accidents?" the girl asks brightly. "Broken bones? Twisted ankles?"

"No, it was just the hands," Natasha says as patiently as she can.

"And that blood pressure…" the guy murmurs. "I'm gonna check it again, maybe it was a naff reading."

She bites her tongue, knowing deep down that they are simply doing their job, but the newbie medical staff are always so much easier to tolerate when they're doing their job on _someone else_. Natasha grits her teeth as the armband is wrapped around her again, and grips the edge of the bed as it swells, constricting her flesh. She holds her breath, and then, the bleep comes, the armband releasing its air as Natasha exhales a sigh.

"That's a bit higher," he says, frowning at the monitor. "Still a little bit low but it's higher."

"Amazing," Natasha says, sliding off the bed and onto her feet. "Thanks."

"Oh you can't go yet!" the girl exclaims, rushing to block the door. "We have to do a full post-assignment medical, just in case!"

"And then we have to make a report - "

"Which has to be approved by Director Fury - "

"And _then_ we can release you."

Natasha looks between the two of them, eyebrow raised. "Do you ever finish your own sentences?"

"Sometimes," the girl says nervously, shrinking back against the door.

"Look," Natasha says. "Director Fury has gone home. I suggest you do the same. I am _fine_." She gives them each a cold stare for good measure, and they seem to wither before her very eyes. She holds in a smile, while the guy tugs nervously on his earlobe.

"You know," he says to the girl. "I think she's probably fine."

"Yes," she agrees, straightening her jumper and moving out of Natasha's way. "I think you're probably right. Thank you very much for your time, Agent Romanov." She opens the door for her and Natasha raises a bandaged hand in farewell before departing and heading as quickly as she can towards the exit.

* * *

Home is a relief. She dumps her bag on the floor as soon as she closes the door and wanders down the hallway, contemplating how the hell she's supposed to get the snug tailored sleeves of her jumpsuit over her chunky bandages, but just as she's making the case to herself for taking them off now instead of in the morning, she stops dead in her tracks, staring at the sofa, her jaw hanging low.

"Good evening."

He's sprawled on the sofa, frowning up at a magazine, and it's with some annoyance that she notices he's got his feet propped up on the arm without having first removed his shoes. It's a bizarre first thought, she'll admit, because really, she should be drawing her gun, or calling for back up or anything else that isn't just staring dumbly at him. She's far too tired for this shit however, and he's as of yet to make any fast movements.

"You're supposed to be dead."

He lets the magazine flop down onto his stomach and turns his head in order to send a withering look in her direction.

"Hello to you _too_," he says scathingly, pushing himself up and tossing the magazine onto the coffee table.

He looks so different to when she last saw him. He's wearing normal clothes, jeans and a faded t-shirt, presumably to blend in, but there's more to it than that. Considering he's supposed to be dead, he's looking a lot healthier than when she last saw him alive. Then he was sweaty, his movements shaky and unsteady, his skin colourless, bar the dark circles under his eyes. Now however, he looks far less damaged, and it's as though the clock has been wound back on him, peeling off the years to reveal a younger, healthier Loki.

He meets her gaze and holds it for a moment before his lips twist into a smirk.

"I'm not here to kill you, by the way."

_Oh_.

"No?"

"That would be rude," he says. "And counter productive."

"Counter productive…" Natasha breathes, her eyes glancing around the room for that spear of his. She has the horrible feeling that she's about to be compromised.

"What happened to your hands?" he asks. The question throws Natasha and she narrows her eyes, trying to work out if he's pinpointing her weaknesses already.

"I cut them. On an assignment," she says slowly, still hovering by the door, her skin prickling uncomfortably. She's itching to get out of her suit, but the demigod on her sofa has waylaid those plans a little. She doesn't know whether she ought to just leave and alert the others as soon as she can, but something about his demeanour keeps her rooted to the spot. He seems far more stable, relaxed, and even…well, maybe not _happy_, but certainly not _unhappy_.

"That was careless of you. Are you going to sit down?"

Natasha blinks, and without her brain giving any instruction, her body complies, and moments later she's curled up on the opposite end of the sofa to him, scowling as he runs his eyes over her.

"Does Thor know you're alive?"

"_No_," he says firmly. "And he's not _going_ to know."

"But - " She remembers Thor swallowing a lump in his throat, his voice croaky as he told her the news when he came to headquarters with Jane. She remembers the overbright glaze on his eyes, the way his jaw muscles had twitched as he clenched and unclenched his fists at his sides, and the way he had looked away when Natasha had offered her condolences. "He's still _mourning_ you."

"Yes…" Loki says dispassionately. "I forgot, the five stages of grief - denial, anger, _sticking your tongue down your girlfriend's throat_…"

Natasha's lips twitch into an almost smile. "He's trying to find distraction, it's perfectly normal. And just because you're dead it doesn't mean he automatically should stop loving her."

Loki huffs, his elbows resting on his knees, fingers steepled under his chin.

"So what are you doing here?" Natasha asks gently. She figures that this time, it's best to be upfront. No games, no hidden agendas, just honesty. She thinks she might actually get a half decent answer from him this time. He's difficult to judge though, he's so different to what she was used to before.

"I've got nowhere to _go_," he says, his gaze focused on his feet. "My father thinks I'm dead, so Asgard is out of the question. None of the other realms are particularly appealing…"

"Except this one?" Natasha asks.

"This one's busy. And modern."

"And Thor's here…"

He stiffens at this. "If I go back to Asgard, my father might revoke my pardon," he says sulkily. "So until he _dies_, I need to keep my head down."

"And your first step in keeping your head down was to break into a SHIELD agent's apartment?"

"You haven't alerted the others," Loki says. "And I didn't know where else I _could_ go."

Natasha sighs and looks up towards the ceiling, her head resting on the back of the sofa as she considers her situation. According to Thor, Loki died saving him. Which, as deaths go, is fairly honourable. One might even call it a pretty big leap towards redemption. _However_, Loki is quite obviously _not_ dead, so clearly didn't make the sacrifice that Thor and the rest of the nine realms believe he made. And yet he still saved Thor.

"Did you know you were going to survive?" Natasha asks.

Loki looks up, slightly taken aback by her question. "Fifty fifty," he says. "It wasn't without its risks, but going back to that cell wasn't part of any of my plans."

So where does that leave things now? He couldn't be sure he'd survive when he saved his brother, but his main motivation was ensuring he didn't land himself back in a dungeon, which, to Natasha, sounds like a fair enough use of logic. But all the same, how can she just let him stay? How could she even force him to go? She could get in touch with Thor, but by the time he arrives to envelope Loki in the bear hug to end all bear hugs and shed a few manly tears over his not-dead brother, Loki will be long gone. Not only will he be gone, but he'll also be angry with her for doing the one thing he doesn't want her to.

"Have you got any food?" he asks softly. "I'm quite hungry."

Natasha blinks, and suddenly feels like she's been lumbered with a babysitting job. For all his ability to blend in on the streets, Natasha wonders whether Loki really understands how things work on Earth. She doesn't imagine he ever really had to lift a finger as a prince, doubts he's ever been to a store to buy Doritos at four in the morning to silence an unexplainable craving. She sighs and pulls her phone from her pocket, searching through her contacts list until she finds the number for the pizza joint that stays open until two. The phone rings half a dozen times before it's picked up, the person on the end introducing themselves at a hundred miles an hour.

"Yeah, can I get a large Texas barbecue?" Her own stomach rumbles at the thought of food. "And some chicken strips…and wedges…"

Loki watches her curiously, and she thinks that this might be his first foray into the world of fast food. It's certainly not Natasha's first, her late nights at SHIELD ensuring that by the time she gets home, the oven is off limits, because the front door is closer than the kitchen.

She finishes placing the order and ends the call. "It should be here in a half hour," she tells Loki. "I'm gonna get changed. Don't…kill anyone."

* * *

"What is it?" he asks, his nose scrunching in distaste when Natasha flips open the lid. She sighs happily as the steam escapes, the scent of the flavours lingering in the air. It's just what she needs after her run in with the dogs.

"Pizza," she tells him, leaning forward to take a slice. "Just try it, you'll like it."

"But what is…_pizza_?" he asks, eyeing it with distrust.

"Pizza's _good_."

He still shows some hesitation, even when Natasha takes a large bite out of her own slice, chewing it happily before she swallows it.

"It's a dough base, this one has barbecue sauce, there's melted cheese, chicken, peppers, onions, it's all good. All really good. Just eat it."

"I feel like a peasant," he says sulkily as he awkwardly lifts a slice from the box. "Eating like this. Out of a box."

"Yeah, well last I heard you had nowhere to go, so you _are_ a peasant."

Her words only cause Loki's scowl to deepen, and he glares at his pizza slice for a moment before he gingerly takes a bite, chews it cautiously, and then apparently decides that it's not going to kill him. They eat the rest of the food in silence, Natasha becoming more and more tired as she consumes each slice, and eventually, she pushes the box closer to Loki's end of the sofa, though she continues to pick at the wedges despite not being hungry anymore. When Loki has swallowed his last mouthful of pizza, and the remaining chicken strip is too cold and too dry for either of them to enjoy, Natasha pushes herself up from the sofa, collects the boxes and takes them out to the kitchen. After she's put them in the bin, she leans against the doorframe, and picks at the edge of her bandage.

"I'm gonna go to bed," she says. "Just…you know, make yourself at home, within reason." She doesn't even know what she's saying. She doesn't know why she's treating him like a half respectable guest when he tried to kill her last summer, but for some reason she can't bring herself to turn him away. There is, and always has been, a rather self destructive part of her that possesses a curiosity over things that she should probably leave well alone, and this is no different. She's curious as to what this new, sort-of-almost-not-quite redeemed Loki has to offer the world, and if it involves him trying to get the entire population to kneel.

"Within reason?"

"Yeah," Natasha says. "Like you can put your feet up providing your take your god damn shoes off," she says pointedly, eyeing his feet which are propped up on the coffee table, his heavy leather boots catching on the edge of his discarded magazine. He rolls his eyes and pulls his boots off, dropping them onto the floor one after the other with a couple of loud thuds.

"Good," Natasha says. "I'll see you in the morning."

She disappears into her bedroom and pulls back the covers on her bed, climbing in and getting herself settled. The gash in her hand is still smarting and so she rests it on the pillow, next to her face, in the hopes that if she keeps the weight of her duvet off of it, she won't notice it nearly as much. There is a small, paranoid part of her that festers in the back of her mind, telling her that right now, Loki is probably poisoning her cereals, or setting bear traps in the bathroom. He hasn't made a sound since she got into bed, and she stares at the ceiling, straining to hear him, racking her brains for what his motivation for coming to her apartment could possibly be. Surely he could have gone to a dozen other places? He could have talked his way into any hotel, used his magic to get his way. But instead he's wound up here, with her, and she can't really get her head around it.

She tries to push the thoughts away, knowing she needs sleep and knowing that an overactive mind is most definitely not the way to go about getting it. But just as she's starting to relax, when she's managed to convince her brain that she can deal with the situation in the morning, the covers on her bed lift up and Loki slides in next to her, making himself comfortable.

"What the _hell_ are you doing?" Natasha demands, sitting bolt upright and glaring at him.

"There aren't any other beds," he says, tugging at the covers to get more for himself.

"So you sleep on the _couch_," she tells him, her heart still racing from the shock of having him join her unexpectedly.

"I'm not sleeping on that," he sneers. "It's had my shoes all over it."

She wonders whether she could hold him down long enough to suffocate him with the pillow, or if she ought to wait until he's fast asleep, just to give her a couple of seconds' head start. He tugs on the covers again and Natasha huffs and lies down, turning her back to him, fisting her hand around the edge of the duvet to get a firm grasp on it, ignoring the sting in her palm as she tightens her grip. She can hear him breathing, and every exhalation grates on her nerves. She's not used to having company while she sleeps, preferring silence, space, and solitude. She's constantly aware of the thin strip of mattress that separates her from him, notes every shift of the covers when he fidgets, his weight pulling the mattress down then letting it spring back up again when he's settled.

Eventually, she feels herself dropping off to sleep, and doesn't have much time left to wonder what the hell she's gotten herself into.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: **Sorry this has taken so long. Have barely had a moment to myself these last couple of weeks. Which is why I'm finishing this off at 6am on Christmas morning. Hope you all have a lovely day, whether you celebrate the holiday or not. And if you're going to be sobbing in front of the TV later because of Eleven, know that you are not alone. Merry Christmas, ya filthy animals. ;)

* * *

**The Interloper**

**by Flaignhan**

* * *

She wakes before her alarm goes off. He's still asleep, curled up under the duvet, his fist wrapped closed possessively around one corner of it. His eyebrows are drawn together in a frown, his breathing slightly forced, and Natasha wonders whether she ought to wake him. She quickly decides against it, realising that a sleeping Loki is far more bearable and far less dangerous than an awake one, and so she cancels her alarm, gets out of bed, and heads for the shower.

Once she's dressed, she towel dries her hair as thoroughly as she can, not wanting to wake Loki with the hairdryer. She finds the quiet immensely peaceful, after the adrenalin rush of the assignment last night, followed by the shock of a supposedly dead Norse god draped across her sofa. Her hands are still smarting from her run in with the barbed wire, but she unravels the bandages anyway, unwilling to spending her day fumbling with every single thing she tries to handle.

"Is it bad?"

She jumps at the sound of his voice, turning quickly to see him hovering in the doorway, his clothes slightly different to the previous day. She frowns, and wonders whether he presumptuously brought luggage with him, but the question vanishes from her mind when he approaches, holding out his hand so he can inspect the stitched wounds on her palm. She instinctively backs away, but he frowns at her, and hesitantly, she allows him to see.

"You've been sewn together?" he asks, lip curling in disgust. He's gentle with her hand, and she supposes she shouldn't be surprised. There is a particularness to him that has always shone through in his very few quieter moments. He's not clumsy, nor heavy handed, and she wonders if growing up in the shadow of Thor's brute strength forced Loki to become as different to him as he possibly could, so he was never trying to play catch up.

"They're called stitches," Natasha tells him, pulling her hand away once she decides he's seen enough.

"Was it done by a child? Or an imbecile? It's a _mess_."

Natasha scowls. "What were you expecting? Some embroidery? Maybe a little decorative beading?" She turns away from him, ignoring his smirk, and opens the kitchen cupboard roughly, grinding her teeth together when the handle catches the graze on her less damaged hand. She pulls out the box of Froot Loops then opens the next cupboard, more carefully this time, and extracts a bowl from the precarious stack on the lower shelf.

"You want breakfast?" she asks.

"Please," he says quietly.

She takes another bowl down for him and sets it on the counter next to hers. "You want Froot Loops?"

He shrugs. "I don't know, do I?"

Natasha opens the box and holds it out to him. Cautiously, he dips one long fingered hand into the box and takes a single, bright pink loop, scowls at it, then puts it in his mouth. Immediately, Natasha can tell that it's not for him, the grimace on his face as he swallows makes it obvious enough, but the point is hammered home by the groan of disgust that sounds from him. She shrugs and pours herself a bowl, then puts the box back in the cupboard, chewing her lip as she looks at the other offerings, wondering what might meet the approval of an alien prince.

"Too sweet?" she asks him.

"Yeah," he says, then scrapes his tongue against his teeth, trying to rid himself of the taste. "Why the hell would you eat those?"

"Because they wake me up more than coffee does…" she replies. She pulls down a box of Rice Krispies and pours some into his bowl.

"What are they?" he asks distrustfully, scowling at the cereal.

"Not Froot Loops," Natasha says stiffly, before pulling open the fridge door, taking out the milk, and pouring some onto their cereals. She dumps a spoon into each bowl with a loud clink, puts the milk back in the fridge, then takes hers into the lounge, Loki following, still scowling. She sits down on the sofa, turns on the TV so she doesn't have to make any small talk, and begins eating, chewing quickly so that she doesn't have to think about the sickly sweet taste, and also so that she can get out of the apartment as soon as possible. She doesn't know what he plans to do today, but as long as it doesn't get her into trouble, then she really couldn't care less. She grinds her teeth as she hears the quiet crunch of his cereal mingle in with the sound of the commercials and takes a deep, calming breath, determined not to let him get to her. He's petty enough to take it as a victory, and she can't have that.

"Does all your food come in boxes?"

"In America it does," she answers, her gaze fixed on the TV as she spoons another heap of Froot Loops into her mouth. "It's convenient."

"It's awful," he says with distaste.

"Yeah will if you want gourmet cuisine you can always go to Le Cirque…"

He doesn't say anything to this, and after a moment, she hears another crunch. After a while, she's able to concentrate on the trashy reality show on the TV and ignore Loki's existence completely, but it's not long before her bowl is empty and she's hurrying into the kitchen to place it in the dishwasher.

"I'm going to work," she says to him as she pulls on her jacket. "Don't fuck up my apartment."

"And there I was planning on flooding the place…" he says, his eyebrow arching as he surveys her.

"If you leave, make sure you close the door behind you."

He rolls his eyes at this and Natasha resists the urge to punch him.

"And most importantly of all, don't draw attention to yourself, and don't get me in trouble."

He dumps his bowl on the coffee table, a small pool of milk in the bottom along with the dregs of his cereal. She makes a mental note to pick up some decent bread on her way home from work so he can have some toast tomorrow, then slams the brake on that train of thought. Why should she put herself out any more than she already has simply to accommodate a very much unwanted house guest?

"Anything else?" he asks, leaning back on the sofa and propping up his feet on the table. He's like a teenager in his attitude, all of her requests being met with either disdain or impatience. She hates how cocky he is, how he treats her apartment like a hotel, and how he makes it seems as though she's being completely unreasonable by asking simple things such as _don't commit mass murder today_.

"You know," she says, running a hand through her still-damp hair and shaking it out as she checks her reflection in the mirror, "I could always ask Thor to run through the house rules with you, if you like. If you won't listen to me, then I'm sure you'll listen to him."

Loki's nostrils flare and he stands up suddenly, storming towards her. Natasha stands her ground, ready to retaliate should she need to.

"If you're going to constantly hold that threat over me - " he growls, but Natasha interrupts.

"_No_. If you're going to be staying in _my apartment_ and eating _my food_ and sleeping in _my bed_, you're gonna have some respect, okay Goldilocks?"

His face twitches at the name, and she knows that not understanding the reference is paining him more than he'll ever let on. He doesn't like being the only one not in on the joke, doesn't like other people knowing more than him, no matter how trivial and inconsequential their knowledge might be.

"So, when I say," she says, index finger hovering half an inch away from his chest, "_don't fuck up my apartment_, d'you know what you're gonna do?"

He doesn't answer, his face set in a venomous glare, and so Natasha prods him.

"Not fuck up your apartment," he says boredly, looking towards the ceiling.

"And when I say _close the door behind you_…"

"I'll close the door behind me, and I'm not going to draw attention to myself because the would be idiotic, just like fucking up your apartment would be idiotic because I'm staying here _too_. It's counter-productive, and you know how I hate such things."

There's that phrase again. _Counter-productive_. She's not sure she likes him using it. It suggests to her that he's up to something, that there's some scheme or plot cooking away in that brain of his and he just needs to bide his time in order to pull things together.

"You're planning on staying until your dad dies, right?" She feels strange, saying it so coldly, so callously, but she knows he wouldn't have it any other way. She knows how much it grates on him to even refer to Odin as his father, that whatever happened with Thor and Malekith must have changed something within him so that he's not so hung up on the small details, that his priorities have been rearranged in such a way that semantics are no longer an issue. She supposes being considered dead might do that to a person.

"Yes, I am," he says plainly.

"So er…is he you know…on his way out?" She knows she probably doesn't have to try and put it tactfully, knows that he detests the man and always will, but for all the hatred that Loki has for Odin, Thor has just as much love, and even if Loki doesn't care about her phrasing, she knows that Thor would, and somehow, in her addled brain, that doesn't seem right.

"Yeah, he'll probably fall into another Odinsleep in the next year or two and won't wake up. I'll have to wait until he actually dies before I go back, I know what the old bastard's like. If he senses that I'm anywhere near his throne he'll jump out of bed and drag it out for another thousand years."

Natasha's brain has frozen. _A year or two_? She'd thought days, _weeks_ at the most, but years? She's expected to share her apartment, her sofa, her _bed_ with a mass-murdering, power-hungry demigod for two _years_?

"Are you fucking kidding me? Two _years_?" she breathes, looking up at him, her mouth agape as her head tries to process the idea of this becoming a normality.

"Two years is nothing," he says with a shrug, turning away from her and heading back to the sofa. "You know our people live for around five thousand, don't you?"

"Yeah and we live for _eighty_," Natasha retorts. "That's a huge portion of my life you're gatecrashing."

"I'll make it worth your while," he says, as though this makes everything okay, and anything he has to offer her would be worth the trauma and inconvenience and general stress of having him around. How can she be expected to keep him a secret for that long? Her colleagues area mixture of spies and superheroes. They make everyone else's business _their_ business. There is no way she's going to be able to keep this quiet for long, no way she'll be able to look Thor in the eye and nod sympathetically whenever he tells her how much he wishes he could have done more to save Loki, how his biggest regret is not taking the body home to Asgard so he could have a proper funeral. and not just been left to rot in a dark and dismal wasteland.

"How?" she asks. "What could you possibly offer me that will make me think that sharing my bed with you was worth it?"

He raises an eyebrow and Natasha's stomach lurches. "No _way_," she says in disgust. "That's gross."

Loki smirks. "Well, I'm sure when I'm King of Asgard I'll be able to find something that meets your approval."

Natasha rolls her eyes. "You seem to think that you can just go ahead and be King and no one's gonna say a thing about it…after _everything_, you think the Asgardians will just sit back and let you rule them?"

"What choice will they have? Thor has declined the throne, the line of succession falls to me. Not even Thor will be able to change it once I ascend."

"You know I feel morally obliged to _tell him_ of your plan to take over Asgard," she says, resting her hand on her hip and ignoring the flash of his eyes. "I remember what happened last time you thought yourself good enough to rule over people."

"It's not a takeover if you're the rightful heir," he argues.

"But you're dead, so technically it means it's a _zombie _takeover."

He smirks at this, but then plays his ace, the one which he will use in Asgard should anyone ever question his ascent to the throne.

"I'm not dead, Thor _left me for dead_, but that doesn't mean I was _actually _dead."

Natasha shakes her head and sighs. There's no winning with him. He'll argue it until she tires of him, and if she's honest, she's halfway to that point already. She hopes that when she walks back through the door this evening, she'll still have a recognisable apartment and he'll have spent the day doing harmless things like watching TV or reading a book. Part of her hopes that he will still actually be here, because if he's here, it means that he's not wreaking havoc on the world. If he's _not_, on the other hand, he's no longer her problem. It's been less than twelve hours, and that already seems like a very appealing turn of events. How the hell is she supposed to handle two years? She's gonna wake up next to him on her birthday, on Christmases, on bad days and good days and all the shit in between. And he's going to be _there_.

"I'm going to work," she says abruptly, turning and heading for the door before her thoughts burrow their way too deeply into her brain and torment her for the entire day. "I'll see you later."

She has to stop herself from sprinting to the door, but she can't hide the fact that in her haste, the door slams shut behind her with rather more force than is truly necessary. As she descends to the ground floor, a horrible truth makes itself clear. She is going to work to escape her own home. Oh how the tables have turned.

* * *

"That hand needs bandaging," Fury says, one eyebrow arched, his lips pursed.

"It's fine," Natasha mumbles, closing the door behind her and taking the seat opposite him, her hands clasped gently in her lap, out of the sightline of his reproachful glare.

"It's going to get _infected_," he says, accentuating each syllable on the last word, as though she is an idiotic child. She bites on the inside of her lower lip, and refrains from spitting out an acidic retort. If she's going to spend hours trawling through CCTV footage with him, she doesn't want to be in his bad books. It's not worth the hassle. Instead of retaliating, she crosses one leg over the other and sits back in her chair, exhaling softly, patiently waiting for him to move on. He fixes her with a piercing gaze for a moment longer, then eventually lets out an exaggerated sigh and turns to the screens fixed to the wall on his left. He picks up the remote control, presses the play button, and Natasha turns her chair, ready for a long day of watching hour after hour of footage.

Five minutes pass before they decide to watch it on triple speed, pausing whenever someone new enters the compound. It's not rewarding work at all, there's no gratification. At least with her adventure the previous night she had done what she'd set out to do, even if she had ended up with hands that look like they've gotten on the wrong side of a salami slicer. With this however, it's just hour after hour of no results. By the time lunch arrives, they've managed to get through the first day's worth of footage. She wonders why they can't just delegate the task to some lowly, overly enthusiastic level three minion and get on with more important things.

"Because," Fury says, pouring them both a cup of coffee in the canteen, "If we _do_ give it to one of the kids, we'll end up with a three hundred page report detailing every single movement of every single person in that footage that'll take even longer to get through the tapes themselves. If you want something doing right…"

Natasha sighs, knowing that he's right, and resigns herself to the fact that the rest of the week will be spent in his office, slowly losing her mind. It would be a hell of a lot easier if they knew what they were looking for, but they don't. They're just looking because they're suspicious, because someone, somewhere, went to Fury and said _I've got a bad feeling about this_. Bad feelings, Natasha knows, usually aren't without cause, but bad feelings with supporting evidence are her preferred types of feelings.

"I want you to head down to the med bay before we start up again," Fury says. "I'm sick of looking at your damn hand."

Natasha scowls, and looks down at her stitches. The skin around them is swollen, the scar jagged and red. She doesn't argue, and after a quick bite to eat, she finds herself traipsing along the corridor with the two youngsters from the previous night hurrying along at her heels, though this time, thankfully, they're not bombarding her with questions.

The girl wraps up her hand, but this time, she doesn't make the bandage so thick. Perhaps she thinks that if Natasha can use her hand more freely, she'll be more likely to keep the bandage on, but Natasha knows that as soon as she sets foot outside the doors at six o'clock that night, she'll be unravelling the cotton and dumping into the nearest bin.

"I'm just gonna check that blood pressure of yours," the guys says, wrapping a cuff around her upper arm. "Was a little bit all over the place last night, should be able to get a better reading today."

Natasha closes her eyes as the cuff swells. She tries to breathe normally as it constricts her arm, but between that and the itchiness of her new bandage, she's finding it quite difficult to stay relaxed. After a few moments, there's a bleep, and the cuff deflates rapidly.

"Perfect!" the guy says, making a few notes in a folder. "That's absolutely spot on!"

Natasha frowns and looks to the monitor. 105 over 70. That's unusually high, even higher than last night when she was stressed and tired. She wonders briefly whether the coffee might have had any effect, but she's drunk no more today than she normally does. Perhaps it's the prospect of a week's worth of CCTV viewing that's got her all wound up, or maybe the fact that she hasn't had a proper weekend off for a while, her free days constantly ruined by calls and assignments that just can't wait until Monday morning.

But, as she slides off the bench and thanks the two med assistants for their help, she remembers exactly why her stress levels might be higher today than they were yesterday, and the reason comes in the shape of the Norse god that's probably destroying her apartment right now.

* * *

Her stomach churns as she turns the key in the lock. She doesn't know what kind of chaos she'll be walking into, and part of her hopes that the two young medics had doped her up with the wrong kind of drugs and she'd hallucinated the whole ridiculous episode. The sick feeling in the bottom of her stomach tells her that she's just grasping at straws, and the fact that the lounge light is on and the TV is spouting out some unintelligible rubbish confirms the awful reality.

She closes the door quietly behind her and shrugs off her coat, hanging it and her bag up on the hooks secured to the wall. She heads towards the lounge, chewing on the inside of her cheek. He's sprawled across the sofa, his pale arms crossed over his stomach, his head tilted to one side so he can watch the TV with blank eyes. She glances towards his feet and notes that he's not wearing his shoes, which is at least an improvement on the previous evening. She's not sure that he's even realised she's home; he seems lost in his own world and neither a re-run of a nineties episode of Ricki Lake, nor Natasha's presence can penetrate it.

"Hey," she says quietly, not wanting to startle him. He's too volatile to risk such tactics with, even if the shock would be suitable karma after the nasty surprise she walked into last night.

He blinks, then turns his head slightly to look at her. He doesn't say anything, but folds his legs up, freeing up the last cushion for Natasha to sit on. She takes a seat, and glances at the tagline along the bottom of the TV screen: _My mom died without telling me I was adopted_. She wonders whether he's been paying more attention than first anticipated to the reddened, teary faces and declarations of love smothered by strangled sobs.

"You okay?" she asks, half watching the scenes on the TV, half watching Loki and his response.

"Yes," he says, so quietly that it almost gets lost in the tinny wailing coming from the speakers.

She doesn't feel sorry for him. That's not why she's tip-toeing around him. That's not why she wants to reach out and touch him, just to remind him of reality. She's not concerned at all, and certainly not about the fact that doesn't think he's moved from this spot all day.

"D'you want anything to eat? I'm gonna order something in." She tries to sound friendly, but she's not great at that, certainly not with him, and it ends up sounding rather strained and a little bit pushy. She's not his mother after all, she shouldn't be telling him when to eat, but she doubts he's ventured to the kitchen to make himself some lunch, or even get a drink. He must be parched.

He sighs and rolls onto his back, frowning at her through heavily lidded eyes.

"What are you going to get? More rubbish in boxes?"

He sounds a little more like himself now, and Natasha allows herself a small smirk.

"Yeah, I was thinking maybe Chinese food, you might like that better than pizza."

"Fine," he says with a shrug, turning his attention back to the TV. He stares at it with little interest, and Natasha has half a mind to change the channel, put something on that might be more rewarding than families airing their dirty laundry in public. Even some half-assed action movie would be better than this - at least he could get caught up in a vague attempt at a plot, or admire the special effects, either for their brilliance or their unbelievable shoddiness. But, the selfish part of her brain kicks in and reminds her that he's not causing anyone any trouble at all, and that she should probably make the most of quiet moments like these.

She calls up the take-out place just down the street and places her order, half expecting Loki to protest at her choices, or else interrupt and demand to know exactly what it is she's ordering for him. Instead, he just continues to stare at the TV in disinterest, his mouth turned down at the corners, his eyes glazed over. She doesn't think he hears her when she tells him she's going to collect the food, ten minutes later, and when she arrives back, brown paper bag full of foil trays and beautiful smells, he doesn't move a muscle until she calls him over to the dining table _twice_. He stalks over, his eyes narrowed at the trays laid out between their two plates, then slides into his chair.

"Why is that _red_?" he asks, his eyes on the sweet and sour chicken, his nose crinkled in distaste.

"Because of the stuff they make it with," Natasha answers patiently. She takes one of the trays and begins spooning noodles onto her plate.

"Red food isn't _natural_."

"Why? Because it reminds you of _Thor_?" she asks, knowing that jabbing him with a proverbial stick isn't the best thing to do so close to bedtime. He lets out a huff and helps himself to some rice first, then tackles the other dishes on offer with varying degrees of caution. He ignores the sweet and sour chicken altogether.

The meal passes in silence, but for the clinking of cutlery. Natasha had considered arming Loki with chopsticks, but after a vision of him jamming one into each of her eyes had assaulted her from somewhere in the back of her mind, she had decided to go with knives and forks instead. Perhaps when he's in a more cheerful mood, she'll try it, but today probably isn't the right time to be provoking him.

He pushes his plate away when he's finished, and waits for Natasha to set her knife and fork down, and drain the last of the water in the bottom of her glass before he slinks away from the table and back to the sofa. His attention is once again on the TV, and Natasha thinks it's probably best to leave him to it. If she's lucky, he might fall asleep on the sofa and she'll get the bed to herself tonight.

She's only just finished washing the dishes (with just the one hand, to make her day even better) when there's a knock at the door. She frowns, then pulls her phone out of her pocket to see if she's missed any messages. Clint usually texts if he's heading over, and anyone else…well, no one else ever bothers. She heads out into the the lounge, and Loki is still lying, almost comatose in front of the TV. She doesn't have to worry about him keeping the noise down while she deals with this then. She walks down the hall, and as she approaches the door, she sharpens her hearing, trying to make out any noise from the other side of the wood, but all she can hear are random outbursts of applause from the Ricki Lake audience, interspersed with opinionated, leading, and often just plain insulting questions.

She unlocks the door and opens it just a crack, then breathes a small sigh of relief when she sees who her visitor is.

"Hey," Bruce says with a sheepish smile. He glances up and down the two inch wide gap between the door and doorframe, then says, "Bad time?"

"Kinda," she tells him. "I was just about to take a shower."

"Oh!" he says, his cheeks reddening. "Well I just wanted to drop these off, Coulson said you got cut up pretty bad last night."

He hands over a pair of gloves, made from a thin, coarsely woven material. She frowns at them, then looks up at him for an explanation.

"They've got stuff in," he says, pushing his glasses up his nose. "Some silver, to help the healing, a few choice chemicals that'll speed things up…"

"What kind of chemicals?" Natasha asks, trying not to sound too distrusting, but unable to keep the scepticism from her voice entirely.

"Nothing that'll turn you green," Bruce replies with an awkward smile. "It's all been tested. You don't have to use them if you don't want to, but I figured they'd be better than nothing."

"No, I will," Natasha says, nodding. "I will, thank you."

From the lounge she hears a crack, and it takes every ounce of will power for her to not look over her shoulder.

"What was that?"

"What was what?"

"That noise," Bruce says. "Didn't you hear it?"

Natasha speaks before she thinks. "Oh shit, I've left the bath running," she says, fumbling with the gloves. "I'll see you tomorrow, thanks for these."

"I thought you said you were having a - "

Before Bruce can pick any holes in her woeful lie, Natasha slams the door in his face and turns around, hurrying back into the lounge. Her heart stops in her chest, the gloves falling to the floor. She makes a dash for the kitchen and grabs the fire extinguisher, while Loki just _lays there_, without a care in the world while the whole TV is ablaze. Initially se thinks he's so lost in his own world that he hasn't noticed that Ricki Lake has been replaced by flames, but when she sees the corners of his mouth turned upwards in the smallest of smirks as she unloads all the foam the fire extinguisher has to offer, she knows he is fully aware of what's happening.

It doesn't take long for her TV to become a foam covered wreck, and the flames subside even faster than she expects. She drops the fire extinguisher and it lands with a heavy, metallic clunk, then she sits down on the end of the sofa, pushing Loki's feet out of the way, her hands trembling ever so slightly as she takes some deep breaths.

"They weren't real flames."

She turns to look at him, unsure as to whether she's heard him correctly. "I beg your pardon?"

"They weren't real. Just an illusion. No need for you to ruin the TV over it."

Natasha bites her tongue as several choice insults spring to mind. After a few more steadying breaths, she trusts herself to ask him the question through gritted teeth, without exacerbating the situation. "_Why_?"

"I was bored," he says with a shrug. "Wanted to see what you'd do."

Natasha presses her hands against her face, ignoring the sharp, stinging sensation caused by the pressure. "Well I hope you found that suitably entertaining," she says, her voice muffled by her hands.

"Not really," Loki says boredly. "I was hoping you'd panic, but you were very dull indeed."

Natasha bites back a retort and snatches up her gloves from the floor.

"And you've ruined the TV. What a waste."

"I'm going to bed," she growls, standing before he can say anything else that would drive her towards attempted murder. She strides into the bedroom and slams the door behind her, pulling on Bruce's gloves before she pulls back the duvet and collapses onto the mattress. It's another few hours before she hears the door quietly open and close. She feels the mattress sink down next to her moments later, and as she lays awake, horribly conscious of the sensation of her skin knitting back together, she knows that he's not going to sleep a wink.

Had he not ruined her TV, she might give a damn, but as it is, she finds she couldn't care less, even if she tried.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: **So...Sherlock kind of happened. Anyway, here's the next chapter. Not sure when I'll be posting the next one but will try and get some work done on it at the weekend. Hope you enjoy this one in the meantime. :)

* * *

**The Interloper**

**by Flaignhan**

* * *

She finds herself splitting her time fairly evenly between headquarters and home. When she's at home with Loki, she can't wait to get to work, but once she's there, she's counting down the hours until she can leave. She finds it claustrophobic, trapped in Fury's office, or her own office all day, and it's been a long long while since she actually completed any rewarding work. Being as high up as she is in the hierarchy means that she gets all the most dangerous and covert assignments, but anything else, which is most of the field work, is delegated to the lower ranks. It'd almost be worth back tracking - she'd quite happily take the pay cut, just so she can get out and about a little more. Office work is _not_ for her, and she doesn't know how Fury, a man who is so action orientated, can be content with sipping coffee all day long. She supposes that in between his cups of coffee he has a lot of serious decision making to do, and maybe he gets off on that, but from what she can tell, his existence in the organisation is currently as boring as her own.

As for her home life, that's no better. Loki flips between quiet and subdued, (to the point where were it not for the amount of space that he takes up on the sofa, or the hundreds of dollars she's just had to shell out for a new TV, she'd barely notice he were even there) to antagonistic and childish. He is, however, getting used to the way things happen on Earth. His favourite 'box food' is fried chicken, and Natasha would hazard a guess that it's probably because it's the closest to what he would have been served on Asgard - meat, potatoes (or French fries, in this case) and between them they'll often share a salad, just for a little bit of greenery. There's a weird kind of harmony between them, and Natasha wonders if it'll splinter in a fraction of a second one day, whether everything will come to a head, or whether she's best off resigning herself to the fact that she's got a long-term lodger whether she likes it or not. So far, her refusal to kick up a fuss has worked well, resulting in only a rise in blood pressure and a new TV, as well as her food bill doubling. Her favourite take-out joints still sound offensively surprised that she's ordering for more than one person, and at least three of them have enquired after her new guest. She had simply smiled coyly in response and handed over her money, preferring to let them believe what they want to, to save any prying or poking that might result in a difficult situation for her.

On Friday, however, she stays a little later at the office, finishing off an extra video file and making a few lazy notes. She doesn't know what's going to happen at the weekend - two full days with Loki. She might try and get him out of the apartment, either on his own, or with her as a chaperone. She's willing to bet that the more he stays cooped up in the lounge watching trashy TV, the more likely he is to become irritable and volatile. She doesn't know what she could offer up to entertain a god in this city - his only interest in it previously has been to invade, but she's thinking of something maybe a little more chilled out than that.

When she wakes the following morning, it's to an empty bed. She stretches, revelling in the space and comfort and _privacy_ that she's had snatched away from her this week, but when she doesn't hear hide nor hair of Loki elsewhere in the apartment, she sits up, her eyebrows contorting into a frown as she sharpens her hearing, determined to pick out any sign of him. She holds her breath, unwilling to put up with the sound of her lungs, and when she's greeted by silence, she throws the duvet off of her, swings her legs out of bed and pads over to the door.

He's in the lounge, sitting on the floor by the full length window, peering out onto the streets below, the sky a soft, pinkish hue as the sun rises, bringing a new day to the city. She folds her arms over her stomach and heads over to the window to join him, settling herself on the floor in one smooth motion, legs crossed beneath her. She follows his eye line, down to the streets below, where yellow taxis crawl along the street like ants, buses occasionally trundling along, huge black puffs of diesel being kicked out of their exhausts.

"It never stops," he says quietly. "Never ever stops, it just keeps going and going and going."

"The city?"

He nods.

"You'll get used to it," Natasha tells him. "You learn to ignore the sirens eventually. Took me a while too, I was used to quieter places."

"It's maddening," he tells her, tearing his eyes away from the streets. "I don't know how you can cope."

Natasha shrugs, her eyes fixed on his jaw, set firmly into a sulky position, his dark eyebrows drawn together in displeasure. She wonders what happened to him, when he 'died'. Something must have, something that will have ripped the rug out from under his feet. He's not the power-crazed maniac she remembers from the Chitauri invasion, he's not even the jealous,, younger brother of Thor anymore. He seems to be a shell of his former self, or even a shell of someone else. He utters so few words when she's around that it's easy to forget he's even there. She wonders how he'd respond, to her prying, to her showing an interest. Would he be offended? She doubts it. Would he tell her that it's none of her damn business? Possibly. Or would he outright deny that anything was different at all? Most likely.

"What happened to you?" she asks, looking out across the skyline. She knows he won't respond kindly to her prying _and_ staring at the same time. "You're not the same as you were before."

"What does it matter?"

"Curious," Natasha says with a shrug. "You're much more placid than I remember from the helicarrier."

"That was a time of war. I had plans."

"And your plans now?"

"You _know_ my plans," he says with an exasperated sigh. "You _know_ I cannot return to Asgard until - "

"Yeah I get that," Natasha says quickly, cutting him off. "But between now and then? I mean you show up here, knowing that there's not exactly been pleasant history between us and you suddenly wanna be room mates? With all your magic you think you'd be able to survive in the real world on your own."

"I don't want - " he stops abruptly, and Natasha turns to look at him, trying to gauge his expression. No such luck though, because even if his face _had_ betrayed him, by the time she had turned her head, all hints of emotion were well hidden behind a smooth facade. He picks at a loose thread on seam of his jeans, his lips pressed into a thin line as he reconsiders his words. He stays silent for a while and so Natasha tries a different tact.

"Why me? Why choose me? There's seven billion people on this planet, and you choose me."

"You're not perfect," he says immediately, then smirks to himself as Natasha scowls at him. "What I mean to say is, you're not perfect, and _I'm_ not perfect. It's a compliment, really."

"Yeah, definitely sounds like one," Natasha says sarcastically, which only causes his smirk to broaden.

"Thor's perfect," he says, looking down at the cars once more, his breath fogging against the cool glass as he speaks. "And dull. Completely and utterly dull. Which is fine, because it means he can save all the realms at once but he can't save his own family."

"So wouldn't that mean he's _not_ perfect?" Natasha reasons.

Loki shakes his head. "Whatever Thor does is the right thing to do. Believe me, I've had over a thousand years of learning that."

"And you're not bitter at all…"

"_No_. But the point is, you allowed me to stay, because you're not perfect. Your good Captain would have thrown me into a prison cell faster than I could blink. Or he would have at least _tried_. But you…your curiosity outweighs your moral obligation, and that was what I was counting on."

"You know," Natasha says slowly, "You're giving me a ton of reasons to report you to Fury right now." She feels a sudden sense of shame for allowing herself to become far too interested in Loki and his plans. In all honesty, even if he _is_ planning something, she'd rather give him the opportunity to let things slip, to allow things to play out, just a little, so she has a half decent idea of what he's up to, as opposed to just locking him up and assuming that things won't continue as planned without his direct input. She hates this tightrope that she's constantly walking, between the belief that he just doesn't have a god damn clue what he ought to be doing with himself, or that he's masterminded a world takeover and is just biding his time in her apartment. Maybe he even wants to implicate her, as revenge for their encounter on the helicarrier.

"That won't be necessary," he says coolly. "All I want is to return home at the appropriate moment. Nothing more."

"I'll believe that when you're gone…" Natasha murmurs. She leans her forehead against the window, forearms resting on her thighs and tries to figure out how she should handle this weekend. She still thinks it would be a good idea to get him out of the apartment for a while, but perhaps in some sort of disguise, just because she can never quite trust that the city's CCTV footage isn't being monitored by SHIELD.

"What do you wanna do today?" she asks him at last, pulling her head away from the window and switching her attention to him. He gives her a sidelong look through narrowed eyes, his brows twitching into a frown of distrust.

"What d'you mean?"

"You've been watching TV all week," Natasha says. "That's not good for you. You should get out into the open air - "

"Feel the sun against my skin?" he asks sarcastically. "Hear the tweeting of the birds?"

Natasha bites back a snappy retort and takes a deep breath. "I _mean_," she says through gritted teeth, "You shouldn't be cooped up in here all the time. It's not healthy."

"The last time I went outside I was impaled. _That_ isn't healthy." He's rubbing his thumb against his fingertips with one hand, while the other touches instinctively and gently, against a spot on his abdomen. Natasha finds her curiosity building once more, but doesn't give in to it.

"But don't you feel like you're in prison?" she presses, her eyes still lingering on the pale hand rubbing absentmindedly against his t-shirt. "I mean, you lie on that couch day after day - "

"This is a world apart from prison," he says. "Completely different. This is comfortable. This is just right." His eyes are fixed on the building opposite, and Natasha follows his gaze. It takes her a while to see what he's looking at, but eventually she spies the window in the opposite apartment block, a floor or two below her own. The room is dimly lit by the yellow glow of a lamp, but it's still quite easy to make out the dark haired, olive skinned woman inside, standing completely naked in front of her wardrobe, biting her lip as she chooses an outfit for the day.

Natasha reaches out a hand and swats Loki on the knee. He tears his eyes away, his lips breaking into the first smile that she's ever seen on him.

"Lovely view," he says, as though simply referring to the sun rise, and Natasha rolls her eyes. For a moment, she really thought his distractedness had been due to his own too-complex-to-put-into-words thoughts, but really, it had simply been due to a naked woman across the street. How typical.

"Have you been watching her the whole time you've been sitting here?"

Loki laughs. "No," he says, "She only got out of the shower a couple of minutes ago."

Natasha rolls her eyes again and pushes herself up from the floor, heading to the kitchen to make some breakfast. When she returns a few minutes later, a bowl of Rice Krispies in one hand and a bowl of Froot Loops in the other, Loki sighs.

"Are you going to get a chef at some point?" he asks, lifting up a spoonful of his cereal and letting it drop back into the bowl with a small splash.

"Yeah," Natasha says, after swallowing down a mouthful of Froot Loops.

"When?" Loki asks, his eyes brightening with interest.

"When you learn to cook," Natasha says with a smirk, raising another spoonful of cereal to her lips. Loki scowls, and sulkily eats his breakfast, his eyes occasionally darting over to the woman in the apartment opposite, who is now dressed and styling her hair. It seems she's not nearly as interesting now she's clothed however, as Loki doesn't even spare her the briefest of glances when she's applying her make up.

Natasha finishes her breakfast and takes hers and Loki's empty bowls out to the kitchen, dumping them in the dishwasher and closing the door. From the lounge, she can already hear that Loki has switched the TV on, and the irritating drawl of Dr Phil filters into the kitchen.

"Are you sure you wanna stay here and watch this shit all day?" she asks.

"Yes," Loki says, making himself comfortable on the couch. "And it's not shit. She's been sleeping with her step-mother, it's fascinating to see how very primitive your world can be."

"This country has over three hundred million people in it…there's bound to be some…questionables."

Loki smirks, and Natasha decides that trying to get him outside is a futile endeavour, and instead goes to to take shower. She can't stay here with him all day, she knows that. She'll go insane.

* * *

"This is a surprise," he says, closing the door behind her.

"Yeah, I was just in the area and…thought I'd drop by," she lies smoothly. Clint shrugs and heads to the fridge, pulling it open and tossing her a beer. She hardly ever comes to Clint's place, and she doesn't know why. It has high ceilings and red bricked walls and the entire length of one wall of the lounge is glass, giving a fantastic view of the city. The sky outside is growing dark and the lights are starting to twinkle into life. In the distance she can see Stark tower light up, its blue glow standing out amongst the yellow and orange of the rest of the city.

"Where you been today?" he asks, cracking open his beer can and heading for the couch. He sits down, and turns to Natasha expectantly, until she slips off her shoes and goes to join him, sitting cross legged on the opposite end of the sofa, beer can in hand as she waits for it to settle.

"Just around," she says, tapping the top of her can then cracking it open carefully before taking a sip. "Went for a walk."

"A walk?" Clint asks sceptically, one eyebrow raised.

"Yeah," Natasha replies with a frown. "A walk."

"All day?"

Natasha shrugs. "I stopped for lunch."

"How're the hands?" he asks. He knows when to drop a subject, and that's part of the reason she came here. Even if he picks up on something being off, he won't push her too far. The others, however, will act entirely upon their concern for her as opposed to their respect for her privacy. Clint knows that if she wants to talk about it, she'll talk about it.

"Okay," she says, looking down at them. All that remains from her run in with the barbed wire are some fine pink scars, the skin a little hard, her movements still stiff, but she's nevertheless well on the way to recovery. "Bruce's gloves really worked their magic."

"Yeah, he's been working on that stuff for a while. Used it on a burn of mine a few weeks back. Pretty impressive."

"Yeah," Natasha says vaguely, taking another sip of her beer. She stares out over the city, trying to work out which of the tall slender buildings in the distance is her apartment block, but they all seem to merge into one. She wonders what Loki's doing, whether he's still vegetating on the couch watching trashy TV or whether he _has_ actually taken her advice and gotten out of the damn apartment for some fresh air. She wonders how much of his cool facade is just a facade. He seems determined to stay inside the four walls of her apartment, and he came to her, rather than finding a place of his own which he could have easily done, she's sure. Something must have happened for him to have actively sought out this familiarity. That's all it is at the end of the day, he knows who she is, and she has an apartment, and he knows that she's so damn bored with her life that she'll relent when it comes to the prospect of putting up a psychopath. And yet, she finds herself chewing her lip, wondering what the hell could have gone so very wrong. Whatever it was has simultaneously tamed him and instilled an uncharacteristic caution in him. If he keeps this up, she knows he'll only get worse, and will point blank refuse to leave the apartment ever. She shudders at the thought, and realises that Clint's watching her closely, his eyes piercing her.

"Bruce said you were kinda…stressed the other night," Clint says slowly, choosing his words carefully. "He was worried about you."

"I'm fine," Natasha says, forcing a small smile. "Really."

"Nat," Clint says with a disbelieving shake of his head. "C'mon, what's up?"

She looks down at her beer can and knows she has to tell him something. Evidently this is something he won't leave alone, not this time, and she has a good mind to have words with Bruce. The last thing she needs right now is him running to Clint and telling him she's been behaving strangely, even if he does have her best interests at heart.

"I'm just kinda fed up," she says at last, slumping her shoulders and tracing the rim of her beer can with her index finger. "Same shit, different day, you know?"

"Yeah," Clint says, nodding in understanding. "But that's just the CCTV stuff, right? You still enjoy the fieldwork, don't you?"

Natasha shrugs. "I don't know. I feel like I'm getting kinda…old."

Clint nearly chokes on his beer. "_What_?" he splutters. "_Old_?"

"Not _old_," Natasha sighs. "But I've been doing this shit nearly all my life and I don't know any different. I think I might like to branch out or something."

"Branch out…" Clint folds his arms, looking at her curiously. "And do what?"

"I don't know," Natasha says exasperatedly, sinking low in her seat, beer can resting on her stomach. "But that's the point, isn't it? How will I know until I've tried?"

"Well I think you'd make a killer pizza delivery chick," Clint says with a smirk. "Or maybe you could do door-to-door sales."

"Maybe I could," she says stiffly, not wanting to rule out even his most stupid of stupid ideas. "Or maybe I could open a book store or - "

"Nat," he says, interrupting her before she can come up with any other change of career plans. "It's not gonna happen. You were built a certain way and you know, as much as SHIELD might be getting you down now, if you try and go out there and live a _normal_ life, you'll be ripping your hair out after two _days_. You remember what it was like last time you tried to take a vacation."

Natasha doesn't say anything, knowing he's right. She doesn't do downtime, and maybe normality would be like a permanent downtime, after everything she's been through. It might be a novelty for the first few weeks, going to the grocery store, buying real food and cooking it in her kitchen, rather than picking up a menu and dialling a number. She might even get into the kind of trashy TV that Loki loves, or maybe she'd have time to do jigsaw puzzles, or go to evening classes and learn something completely new. Another language, maybe, one so far removed from the ones she already has a good grasp of. Or maybe she could just drive off, because she doesn't have to answer to anybody. She could drive off or she could stay at home and it would be entirely her choice. Maybe, and the thought seems alien and strange to her, but maybe she could settle down.

That is, perhaps, a step too far, because she grimaces at the thought and takes a swig of her beer.

"Everyone feels like this from time to time," Clint says quietly. "I have, I know. It passes, it always does. You'll have a really cool assignment land in your lap and you'll forget all about this shit. Grass is always greener, you know?"

"Yeah," Natasha says, looking down at her beer. "Yeah I guess you're right."

* * *

Her head is a little hazy as she travels up in the lift, the bright lights causing her to squint. She glances at her reflection, her eyes slightly glazed, but she looks okay. Not too drunk, at least. When she reaches her floor, the speakers let out an irritating _ding_ as the doors slide open, and Natasha carefully treads down the corridor, aware that her balance is off, just a touch. She shouldn't have started drinking so early, and especially not beer, and even more especially, not with Clint, who always _always_ wants to try and outdrink her, but never quite manages it. He's currently sprawled on the couch in his apartment, drooling on the leather cushion as he snores loudly, his feet dangling over the arm of the couch. He always was a lightweight.

She smirks, and unlocks the door of her apartment, wondering if Loki will still be here. Surely, at some point, he's going to get sick to death of being in the same place and just burst outside, striding around the streets of the city as though he owns them. Maybe his reluctance to head outside is caused in part by the fact that the last time he tried to own these streets, he got his comeuppance. Maybe if it were a different city, he might be more open to exploring.

Whatever the reason, Natasha decides it's not her problem. She hangs up her jacket and bag, toes off her shoes, and heads towards the lounge, where the flicking blue light of the TV tells her that Loki is, most likely, still in the same spot she left him all those hours ago.

Apparently, he has run out of talk shows, because the TV is showing a grainy infomercial, the screen filled with a distorted image of cheap glittering jewellery while a middle aged woman with an eighties style haircut yammers on about cubic zirconias and gold plated chains. Loki's eyes are closed, the light of the TV throwing the sharp angles of his face into harsh relief. He's breathing softly and steadily, and Natasha narrows her eyes at him, sure he is awake and just waiting to scare the living shit out of her. And yet, his breathing suggests that he might actually be asleep. She doesn't know him well enough to know just how good, or just how dedicated a liar he is, but she's been staring at him long enough for him to make his move, and still, nothing.

She steps backwards, edging around the coffee table and reaching out an arm to flick the switch on the TV. Darkness descends instantly, with only the weak glow of light pollution outside the window allowing Natasha to see anything at all. Loki shifts on the sofa, turning onto his side, his knees drawing up close to the rest of his body.

"No," he murmurs.

Natasha nearly jumps out of her skin, and peers at him in the dark, his eyes still closed.

"No let me out, I have to…I have to…" His words trail off, Natasha's heart beating fast in her ribcage. His breathing evens out again, and she straightens up, deciding that it might be best if she went to bed. She knows that kind of murmur, the kind that usually goes unheard in the dark. Despite everything he's done, despite him turning up in her apartment uninvited, she doesn't want to intrude on that murmur. She knows waking him is the worst thing she could do. Apart from the fact that it's healthier if the dream just plays out, if she wakes him, he'll know that she's seen him vulnerable, and she knows, from her own experience, that that kind of exposure only makes a person more determined to be hostile. That's the last thing she needs from him.

She goes into her bedroom, closing the door quietly behind her, and changes into her pyjamas before she crawls into bed. She can't help but listen out in the darkness for him, her ears straining to hear a mumble or a groan, but there's nothing until he wakes up with a sharp gasp, his breath ragged. She hears him stumble into the kitchen to get a glass of water, and it is a long time before her door is pushed open and he climbs into bed next to her. He lies stock still, facing the ceiling, while Natasha has her back to him. She pretends to be asleep, but she knows he's not buying it. Most of the time she doesn't even have her eyes closed, and is relying on the fact that he's far more concerned with other things.

He lets out a shaky sigh, which is muffled as soon as he presses his hands to his face, and she can feel him trembling, just a few inches from her.

Something is wrong with him, that much is certain. Maybe it's none of her business, but as long as he's staying in her apartment, she's going to make it her business to find out what it is.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: **I'm kind of over Sherlock fics for a little while now. I burned out (like I think I did with Turn) so now writing this is hella easier than it was. Also, I've had a swell idea for another Blackfrost fic. I say Blackfrost, I'm not sure how shippy it'll be, but it'll certainly feature our favourite pair. I'm actually stupidly excited about it and may start working on it as soon as I've had dinner. Anywho, hope you enjoy this chapter. Let me know what you think. :)

* * *

**The Interloper**

**by Flaignhan**

* * *

When she walks into the lounge, the bookcase is on fire. She raises an eyebrow at him and he huffs, extinguishing the flames with a wave of his hand.

"That's getting real old now," she tells him. She walks down the hallway to the front door and picks up her mail, sorting through the envelopes and quickly realising that every damn piece is junk. He twists around onto his front, his arms folded on the arm of the couch, chin resting on top of them, and watches her closely. Natasha does her best to ignore him, as that seems to work quite well. If she indulges him, he'll start showing off, and with showing off usually comes a drastic decrease in her patience.

"Are you going to work today?" he asks.

Natasha shakes her head.

"Why not?"

"Because I don't want to," she says distractedly as she peruses a new takeout menu that's in amongst the rest of her junk mail. She likes the look of their chicken, so she puts it to one side then crumples up the rest of the leaflets and sales pitches and tosses them into the bin.

"Don't you have to, though? It's not the weekend."

Natasha smiles at his naivety. "You really think I give a damn about that?"

"My my, is that an attitude I spy? What have you told your beloved superiors?"

"Move your god damn feet and I'll _tell you_," she says, heading over to the couch. He grudgingly obeys and Natasha sits down with a sigh, tucking her feet under herself and leaning against the side of the couch.

"Well?" he asks expectantly. "What did you say?"

"I told them that I wanted some downtime. So that's what I got."

"Just like that?" Loki asks, his eyebrows drawing into a frown. "No pretending to be ill? No family emergencies? The servants would always be sent to me when they had taken days off. I was always the best at sorting through their lies." He smirks briefly, but it soon fades from his face, and he shakes his head, as though he has been dropped back into reality with a horrible splat.

"I don't get ill and I don't have any family," Natasha tells him. She reaches for the remote and turns the TV on, flicking through the channels, trying to find something that isn't a talk show. "And," she continues, pausing briefly on a stupid infomercial filled with stupid people creating problems that no real person ever actually has. "I never take any time off. So when I asked for time off, they said it was fine."

"That's…incredibly boring," he sighs. "I thought you assassins were supposed to be all secrets and lies? I thought living here would be far more interesting than it actually is. Have you not got any secret passageways in this place?"

Natasha frowns. "No, this is an apartment, not a laboratory from a movie. And living here _might_ be more _interesting_ if you got off your ass and went outside from time to time." She jabs him with her toe and he scowls at her.

"Fine," he says, standing up. "Let's go outside. Let's go outside and you can show my why it's so much better being out _there_ than it is in here."

Natasha shakes her head. "Not today," she tells him. "They'll be watching me closely today. You can't go outside."

Loki lets out a dramatic sigh and throws himself back down onto the couch, arms folded across his stomach. She does wonder if he is, at last, getting bored of staring at the TV all day long. The most walking he's been doing is from the bed to the couch, and sometimes to the kitchen, so he's not getting any exercise. Sunlight hasn't touched his skin for at least two weeks, so he's even paler than usual.

"We can go out at the weekend if you want. You need some vitamin D." She turns off the TV, giving up hope of ever finding anything that she might consider vaguely interesting. Hundreds of channels of pure unadulterated shit. She doesn't even know why she has the damn thing. It's only ever served as background noise when her apartment's been particularly quiet. Not that it suffers much with that these days.

"Some _what_?"

"Vitamin D," Natasha tells him. "Sunlight. You know, the big bright thing in the sky that's _good for you_?"

Loki pulls a face. "I don't need sunlight. I'm not like you mortals. I can get by just fine without it."

"Okay," Natasha says, not bothering to keep the scepticism from her tone. She stands up and rolls the stiffness out of her shoulders. "I'm going out to grab a coffee. You want anything?"

"No," he says, then after a moment adds, "thank you."

She can hardly believe her ears, but Natasha doesn't make a big deal out of it. Instead she slips her feet into her shoes, grabs her bag, and heads for the front door.

* * *

The coffee shop is busy, and Natasha joins the line, eyeing up the muffins, slowly shuffling forward as each person is served. She's in her own little world, so when she's struck by a gigantic force, she doesn't have time to brace herself. She falls against the counter, gripping the glass screen covering the pastries, then scrambles to her feet, her heart pumping, fury coursing through her. A gentle hand lands on her shoulder and she flinches, turning around to face its owner.

"You okay?" the man asks, his dark eyes filled with concern. Natasha nods and turns back to the direction she was hit from, where a large, muscular man is taking a seat, apparently not giving a single damn that he's nearly flattened her.

"Hey buddy!" the guy behind Natasha calls. "Are you gonna apologise to the lady?"

The man frowns at him. "For what?"

"You just shoved her outta your way!"

"She shouldn't have been _in_ my way," the man says, standing up and adjusting the peak of his baseball cap. He approaches the guy behind Natasha, shoulders squared, and Natasha spreads her feet a little wider, steadying herself should things get lively.

"What, you think you can just barge a lady outta the way 'cause your fat ass can't fit through the gap that everybody else can?"

Natasha lets out a sigh. Of course. Of course she can't take a day off without getting embroiled in a fight by lunchtime. It's a good job Loki isn't here. He'd probably be stoking the fire for his own amusement, tossing out a few choice insults of his own.

"What did you say, punk?" His voice is a low growl, and he is inches away from Natasha's would-be saviour.

"I said - "

"I _know _what you said, d'you wanna take this - "

"If you know what I said then why'd you ask? You deaf? Stupid? Both?"

Natasha groans. As well intentioned as brown-eyes is, he is definitely the stupidest one in this damn coffee shop, and he finds that out the hard way when he is grabbed by his collar and dragged outside. There's only a moment's hesitation before Natasha forgets her order and follows, darting through the throng of patrons to make it to the door.

Blood has already been spilled by the time she makes it to the quiet side street the pair of them are tussling in. Natasha sighs as the big one gets brown-eyes in a headlock, but he twists out of it with some ease, more than Natasha had expected, and manages to take a swing at the big guy. He catches it easily, his much larger hand crushing brown-eyes' fist, causing him to screw up his face in pain, though he doesn't make a sound.

"That's enough," Natasha says sharply. Both parties pause and look up, and Natasha half hopes that brown-eyes will take the opportunity to land a winding blow to the big one's gut. Unfortunately, he's far too respectful of her request.

"I'm teaching this punk a lesson, now run along, sweetheart."

Natasha pauses, determined not to suddenly break out into her usual moves. She only likes showing off in the right environment, and ten feet away from a busy New York street is not ideal. But as his words, his tone, and his _sweetheart _wash over her, she decides that actually, she doesn't give a damn.

"Last warning," she says coldly. "Walk away, or face the consequences."

"Consequences?" he sneers, dropping brown-eyes' fist and taking a step towards Natasha. "And what consequences might they be?"

Natasha sighs, but before the last of her breath is exhaled, she moves rapidly, taking the gigantic oaf by surprise, gripping him by the wrist, thumb digging painfully into his pressure point. She lifts his arm, keeping it straight, then ducks under it, twisting around and taking his legs out with one swift sweep from her foot. He cries out as he hits the ground, his arm now at an awkward angle as she rests a foot on his back, holding him down.

"Let go!" he shrieks. "You're gonna break my arm!"

Natasha shakes her head. "Oh no, I can go a lot further before your arm actually breaks." She wrenches it back, his muscles hard and strained under the skin, and he screams, burying his face into the concrete. "See?"

"Please!" he sobs. "Please!"

"If I let you go, you turn around and you don't come back," Natasha says loudly above his whimpering. "Or...there will be consequences."

"Okay, okay," he says, his breathing harsh and ragged. "Please."

Natasha releases him and he scrambles to his feet, dashing back to the street. She looks down and sees that his sweat stained baseball cap is lying on the floor, apparently dislodged while he was squirming. She bends down and picks it up gingerly, between index finger and thumb, then tosses it into the nearest open dumpster. When she turns around, brown-eyes is watching her, stunned, the back of his hand held against his split lip to stem the blood flow.

"You okay?" she asks, approaching him slowly.

He nods, shellshocked, still staring at her. "That was awesome," he says softly. He pulls his hand away and checks the back of it, then wipes it roughly with his other hand, trying to get rid of the blood.

"Thanks," Natasha says, smiling slightly. It's not very often she gets compliments. At work she just gets eye rolls when she accomplishes anything especially tricky. They've kind of come to expect it of her now, they don't really see her as human, which is fine by her.

"Where the hell did you learn to do that though?" he asks, still gazing at her in awe.

"I did a Tae Bo class at the gym," she lies easily. "It's just a move they teach you."

"It's awesome," he says again, eyes still wide. "Can you teach me?"

"Well you just gotta take them by surprise," she tells him, moving forward until she's close enough that she can take his wrist in her hand. "You have a pressure point here," she says, pushing her thumb down gently so he knows the spot. "And you duck..." She lifts his arm slowly and walks under it. "You turn." She turns, though she keeps her grip on his wrist slack so she doesn't hurt him. "And then you kick their legs out." She hooks her foot around his ankle and tugs gently, showing him how it locks into place. "Gravity'll do the rest for you. Just make sure you keep a hold on that wrist."

She releases him and he turns to face her. With anyone else she'd call it uncomfortably close, but now, looking at his brown eyes and his split lip and his light stubble, she's not sure she'd call it that.

"Sean," he blurts out. Then, composing himself a little as a blush rises in his cheeks, says: "My name's Sean."

"Francesca." She lies before she can stop herself, but she doesn't exactly know what the alternative is. She can't tell him her real name. She can't tell anybody her real name. Everybody has to be vetted and pass through security clearances before she's allowed to reveal anything about her true self. It goes hand in hand with what is technically a government job, even if Fury does run it like it's his own personal fun house.

"That's a beautiful name," Sean says. He smiles, but winces at the tension in his lip, and drops it quickly.

"Thanks," Natasha replies.

"Did you uh, maybe wanna grab a coffee?" he asks, dabbing at his lip carefully to find that it's now started to clot, though the skin on his hand is stained with scarlet. He tries to rub it off, but just ends up spreading it around, and looks down at his jeans but then looks up again.

"Wipe it," she says, nodding towards his jeans. "I won't judge."

He grins and rubs his hands against his jeans, the blood slowly colouring the fabric. When his hands are mostly clean again, he looks up at her hopefully.

"So...coffee?" he asks again. "But somewhere else, obviously."

Natasha considers him for a moment, but after she realises that she's only got a sulky Loki waiting at home who certainly won't miss her, she decides that she _will_ go and get a coffee, as originally planned, except this time with company.

* * *

"You were a long while," Loki says, frowning at her as she walks in. When she heads for the sofa he moves his feet, drawing his long legs up so that she has enough space to sit down.

"I stayed in," she says, feigning distraction by grabbing the TV remote. She has seen enough Maury to last her a lifetime and she doesn't know how Loki can sit there and rot in front of it day in, day out.

"You've been gone for three _hours_," Loki says. "How much coffee did you _drink_?"

Natasha turns to look at him, her grip on the remote loosening as she forgets about the dirge on the TV screen. "Sorry, since when did _you_ care?"

"I don't _care_," Loki says sulkily, pushing himself up into a more comfortable position. "I just find it _suspicious_."

Natasha shrugs. "Not my problem." She turns away to hide her smirk. Has he really been counting the hours since she left? Are his suspicions the only source of entertainment or mental activity that he can actually get these days? He's funny, in his own little way, and while she would prefer to have her apartment to herself again, she can't deny that she's gotten used to his surly presence. It's almost kind of nice, to come home and have somebody there. He doesn't say much, nor does he do much, and some days, they don't even acknowledge the other's existence. But there is something comforting about having another living, breathing person in your home, after so many years of solitude. She'd always scoffed at the idea of having people around on a regular basis, but now that she's finding her job more mundane by the day, it's almost a relief that she doesn't have to return home to silence and emptiness.

She switches the TV off, and Loki scowls, reaching forward quickly for the remote, but he hisses in pain, one hand flying towards his stomach as he closes his eyes and leans back carefully against the sofa.

"What's up?" Natasha asks, setting the remote on the table and shifting in her seat to face him. "You okay?"

"Yeah," he says, letting out a slow and steady breath. "Yes."

"Is that from where you…?" She trails off, not really knowing how to phrase the question.

"From where I _what_?" he asks, eyes narrowed, and he slowly moves his hand away from his abdomen, though the knuckles of his other hand are popping white under his skin.

"You know..." she says, shrugging her shoulders. "_Died_."

He doesn't say anything, but his eyebrows twitch into a deeper frown.

"What?" Natasha says innocently. "I'm just asking. D'you need anything for it?"

"It's fine," he says stiffly. "Even gods feel some after effects of being impaled."

"Has the wound healed?" she asks, surprised by the well of concern that has sprung up inside her. "It's not infected, is it?"

"No," he says haughtily, sitting up straighter. "It most certainly isn't."

"It's fine if it is," Natasha tells him seriously. "You just need to say and I can get you something to help with it."

"It's fine," Loki says again. "It's only intermittent."

"Okay..." Natasha says sceptically. "Just let me know if you want anything. I'm not a _complete_ sadist."

"But you are a_ bit _of a sadist?" he asks, raising one eyebrow, the corner of his mouth curving into a smirk.

"Well, I doubt I'd have made a very effective assassin if I wasn't."

"True," he concedes. He seems to relax a little, his muscles slackening, and after a moment he rubs his stomach absentmindedly, then reaches forward for the TV remote, much more carefully this time, his fingers stretching until they can close around it.

"Please not more talk shows," Natasha sighs exasperatedly.

"They're funny," Loki says quietly, finding one within seconds and dropping remote onto his lap, his eyes fixed on the screen, pale face reflecting the blue glow of the TV.

Natasha sighs and rests her head on her hand, making herself comfortable. She lets the squawking wash over her, blocking it out and retreating into her own little world. Loki doesn't say a word while the show is on, doesn't even snigger when a fight breaks out and security has to step in. She thinks he might actually just be watching it for the noise, to drown out whatever it is in his head that's bothering him so much.

He shifts his position again when the commercials come on, twisting to face the TV more, and he moves carefully, one large pale hand resting over his stomach, as though bracing it. Natasha sighs impatiently and pushes herself up from the sofa. She has no idea how long it's been bothering him for, but it must have been bad when he arrived. Maybe that's why he lies so still at night, maybe that's why he stays in all day, because moving about physically hurts him, and he's using this time in her apartment as a recovery session, as well as a hideout.

She digs out her hot water bottle from the back of the cupboard in the bathroom, then takes it to the kitchen and starts to boil some water. On the rare occasion that she's needed it - pulled muscles, back ache, and whatever other terribly dull aches and pains her career choice chooses to strike her down with, it has been a godsend. When the water is boiled, she fills the rubber innards, screws on the cap, then slips the hot water bottle into its fleecy cover. She heads back into the lounge and holds it out to Loki. He frowns, then takes it from her.

"What is it?" he asks, his gaze focused on it as he turns it over, the water sloshing about inside.

"Put it on your stomach," she tells him as she returns to her seat. "It'll soothe the pain."

"I'm not _in - _"

"_Just_…" Natasha says impatiently, cutting him off. "Do it."

He casts a withering look in her direction, then presses the hot water bottle to his stomach. He closes his eyes contentedly, his teeth sinking into his lower lip as his toes curl. He's been hiding it well, but then she supposes that he has all day to himself to deal with the pain in private. Her day off must have really thrown a spanner in the works, and so she leaves the subject be, now that he's hugging the hot water bottle to him, not even bothering to watch the TV.

Natasha relaxes, and props her feet up on the edge of the coffee table, arms folded over her stomach as she boredly watches the drama unfold on the TV screen. It's all a case of same shit, different family, and Natasha, if she's being perfectly honest, is quite glad that she doesn't _have_ a family, if this is what it always ends up like. She can't see any benefit to it whatsoever - Thor and Loki's family is totally fucked, with the latter pretending to be _dead_ just so he doesn't have to speak to his father ever again. Tony has some really severe daddy issues going on yet Clint doesn't even have a family and he's just as sane as she is. The same goes for Steve, so it just goes to show, that families are nothing but trouble.

And yet, as Loki sits there on her sofa, easing the pain out of his wound, he is safe in the knowledge that he is loved, unconditionally by his brother and his mother. From the sounds of things, Odin's love has been conditional on Loki doing as directed, so it's no surprise that that relationship is in tatters. But as for Thor? As for his mother? Loki can push and push and still be welcomed back with open arms by the pair of them, Natasha knows.

She wonders if things might have been different if she'd had someone to welcome her home and offer their forgiveness. Maybe she'd have stopped sooner. Or maybe she'd never have become what she is at all. Who knows?

She is shaken from her thoughts by a couple of sharp vibrations from her phone. She takes it from her pocket and sees a message from Clint, asking if she's okay. She shoots back a rapid reply telling him she's fine and she just needed a day to chill, but before she can put her phone down, it vibrates again, and she curses his quick typing.

_Have you thought about taking a vacation? A real one?_

Natasha smirks at the idea and taps out a reply.

_Me? On a beach? You have to be joking._

She keeps her phone in her hand, knowing full well that his reply will come in a few moments. Just as expected, her screen lights up seconds later.

_It doesn't have to be a beach and I'm not joking. _

Natasha shakes her head and discards her phone. She can hear his seriousness radiating through the words, can see his frown of concern as he types out each text, but she's not interested. One day off after years of service does not mean she needs to take weeks away from work. What does he think she needs? To _find herself_? To have some _me time_? And he's arrived at this conclusion because she's taken one lazy day to chill out? Granted, he doesn't know the levels of her stress, and it's a good job too. Though looking at Loki, she can hardly claim he's shredding her nerves. He's just existing in the same space as her, which initially _was_ stressful, but now, she's not sure she can really blame him for her current mood. He's like a cat, only wanting food and shelter and as much physical comfort as he can possibly attain. She supposes she should be grateful he's not leaving dead mice in her kitchen for her.

When it becomes apparent that Loki is not going to permit her to change the TV channel, and nor is he going to move for the rest of the day, Natasha decides to be productive. She changes the bed covers, cleans the bathroom, and battles through her laundry, finding the whole process to be somewhat therapeutic. By the time that Loki's run of trashy talk shows has finished, and he is forced to find new entertainment, the entire apartment is spotless. She skulks around, trying to find other jobs for her to do, and when she realises the only stone left unturned is cleaning the windows, which will take her a good few hours, she manages to talk herself out of it by reasoning that she'll cook dinner instead of ordering take out.

She tells Loki she's going out, and he mumbles a 'bye' in her direction as he flicks through the TV channels, hot water bottle still clutched to his stomach. As soon as she steps out of the front doors of her apartment block, she can tell she's being tailed. It's so pointless, and so she dials Fury's number as she walks along the street to the grocery store, trying her hardest not to roll her eyes as a suited man follows her movements on the other side of the street.

"What's up?"

"You're having me followed, that's what's up," Natasha says coolly.

There's a nervous laugh at the other end of the line. He's been caught.

"Who were you having coffee with earlier?" Fury asks, not even bothering to pretend that Natasha's simply being paranoid.

"Just some guy," Natasha says with a scowl. "Can't I get an ounce of privacy? Or have I risked my life for this organisation far too many times to be granted _that_ courtesy?"

"Don't be like that," Fury says with a sigh. "You know I'm just worried about your ass. We all are. It's not like you to just not show up to work."

"Call him off," Natasha replies, not wanting to get dragged into a conversation about _feelings_, and _taking care of herself_. Those are the _worst_ kind of conversations. "And send him back to stealth training. He's pitiful."

"Noted," Fury says. "What are you doing then? What's so secret that you don't want our guys knowing about it?" There's a hint of humour to his voice, but Natasha's not finding any of this funny. She knows that SHIELD keeps an active watch on all of its employees, but she had never expected that her privacy would be invaded to the extent that her boss would be made aware of a simple cup of coffee mere hours after the event. It feels like a step too far. Or maybe she's just on edge because she's got far bigger problems sprawled on her couch right now, and if Fury were to find out about that, she'd be in some really deep shit.

"I'm going grocery shopping," she says tartly. "Because I'd kinda like to _eat_ tonight."

"What's for dinner?" Fury asks, his pleasantries grating on Natasha's nerves. From the corner of her eye Natasha sees her tail back off and wander back to his car.

"I'll see you tomorrow," Natasha sighs, then disconnects the call. She doesn't know why there is so much concern around her absence. She called in, she told them she was fine, and apart from that, she has the highest scores in hand to hand combat in the history of the organisation. She can handle herself just _fine_.

Her mood doesn't improve as she wanders around the grocery store, half wondering what Loki would eat without complaint and and half not giving a damn. In the end, she settles for pasta, because it's easy, but also because she can't order that in. She grabs the rest of her ingredients, pays for them, and heads back to her apartment block, her stomach growling at the thought of home cooked food. She gets cooking straight away when she arrives back, Loki still sat dispassionately in front of the TV, not even having bothered to turn the lights on now that the sky outside is darkening quickly.

Once the pasta is on the hob, she heads back into the lounge to flick the lights on, and it's not until she hears the next set of commercials blaring that he makes his appearance, while she's pan frying chicken and pancetta.

"You're cooking," he says mildly. She suppresses a smile when she sees that he's still holding the hot water bottle loosely against him with the underside of his forearm. For someone who isn't in pain, he does seem to be awfully fond of it.

"Yeah," she tells him. "Does that need reheating? It must be cold by now."

"Yes," he says, looking down at the hot water bottle. "That'd be good, actually."

"Leave it on the counter," she says. "I'll do it in minute. Unless you wanna stir this?"

She's expecting him to scowl and disappear back into the lounge, but instead he sets the hot water bottle down on the counter as instructed, then approaches Natasha, holding his hand out to take the spoon from her. She passes it to him and he stirs the pan's contents cautiously, as though half expecting something horrible to jump out at him and attack. While Natasha deals with the hot water bottle, he peers curiously into the bubbling pot of pasta, his stirring becoming more and more confident as he realises just how simple it is. By the time she's done, he seems quite at home in the kitchen, and Natasha just hopes that the rewards of their joint efforts will be enough to coerce him into picking up a recipe book and trying a little bit of cooking himself from time to time. Coming home to food on the table would be quite nice, and would almost make harbouring a fugitive god worth it.

Her phone vibrates on the kitchen counter as she screws on the top of the hot water bottle, and Natasha ignores it. From the corner of her eye, she sees Loki crane his neck to read what's on her screen, and she shakes her head. She doesn't know what entertainment he can possibly glean from a smug text from Clint, claiming that her silence means she knows he's right. Loki doesn't say anything, but returns his attention to his cooking with a smirk on his face. She passes him the hot water bottle and he tucks it under his arm, apparently not relinquishing his spoon any time soon. Natasha reaches past him for the pasta and takes it to the sink to drain away the water, then grabs a couple of plates from one of the cupboards.

Between the two of them, they manage to put together a half decent meal, and it's not long before they're sitting at the table, tucking into steaming plates of pasta. After the first mouthful, Natasha resolves to cook at least once a week. It makes such a huge difference to have freshly cooked food, and it is _so_ worth the effort. Maybe now that she has a lodger, of sorts, it might be even more worth the effort than usual. She has always managed to justify her eating habits by telling herself that there's no point in cooking for one, that it's a waste of time and she'll just end up overeating because everything comes in twos anyway.

But now she has a god to consider, whether he's a welcome house guest or not.

"Who's Sean?" he asks casually, though his eyes are glittering with mischief.

Natasha frowns, and pushes her pasta around her plate with her fork. "Who?"

"Sean," Loki repeats, his tone suggesting that he knows full well she heard him correctly the first time. "He sent you a _text message_."

"Oh really?" Natasha asks, spearing a piece of pasta on the end of her fork. "What did it say?"

"Well I don't know because it didn't _show it_," Loki says impatiently. "It just showed his name."

"Oh," Natasha replies, then continues to eat, as though the news has no effect on her whatsoever. She is more thankful than ever for her paranoia-induced change in her phone settings, and couldn't be gladder that Loki is still blissfully unaware of what that text message contains. She doubts it's anything too damning, but just as she doesn't want Fury poking his nose into her private life, she'd rather Loki was kept in the dark also.

It takes a great amount of will power to eat her dinner slowly, and once she and Loki are both finished, it's not until Loki is sitting in front of the TV once more, apparently now inseparable from his hot water bottle, that she disappears into the kitchen under the pretence of washing up.

_I've got a dinner reservation at this swell place in Little Italy on Friday. It'd be awesome if you joined me. _

Natasha bites her lip, and hesitates only for a moment before she sends her reply.


End file.
